A treatise on the nature, symptoms, causes, and treatment of insanity : with practical observations on lunatic asylums and a description of the Pauper Lunatic Asylum for the county of Middlesex, at Hanwell.

  • Ellis, William Charles, Sir, 1780-1839.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the nature, symptoms, causes, and treatment of insanity : with practical observations on lunatic asylums and a description of the Pauper Lunatic Asylum for the county of Middlesex, at Hanwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    probable that the same tendency to morbid action which exists in other parts of the body should also be found in the brain. Again; as we find that children resemble their parents in conformation of the body, in feature and complexion, and even in the colour of the eyes and the hair, it is but reason- able to conclude that there should be a like resem- blance in the structure of the brain and nervous system ; and that as other diseases, for instance gout, scrofula, phthisis, &c, are propagated for generations, so also should diseases of the brain. There cannot indeed be any doubt that insanity is an hereditary disease. Out of 1380 patients, there have been 214 whose parents or relatives we have ascertained to have been previously insane. In 125 of these cases no other cause could be assigned for the disease coming on than that of its being hereditary. In sixty-five there were various moral causes, in conjunction with this hereditary tendency ; and in twenty-four there had been blows on the head preceding the attack. If we had more complete information, I have no doubt but that the insanity would be found to have been hereditary in a much greater number. It does not however follow, that the offspring of parents who have been insane should themselves necessarily become so ; particularly if the insanity has existed only on one side. For instance, if it has taken place on the paternal side, the child may have inherited the constitution of its mother, or vice